Ideas for your first crossword

EclipseCrossword makes it easy to create a crossword puzzle that’s totally “you.” But, all that freedom can be daunting at first. If you’re having trouble thinking of what to make for your first crossword, here are a few to get you started:

• Teaching a class? Whether it’s a 200-person class at a university or a 10-person Sunday School class, your students will enjoy doing a lesson-themed crossword puzzle. For younger kids, pick a handful of important topics from the lesson and put each one in a puzzle to give to them at the end. For older students, you can pick a variety of topics from the lecture, both important and obscure, and make sure that they’ve read through the material.
• Have a website? Take bits of information from your website and put them in a crossword for your visitors. Include topics from a variety of different pages and encourage your visitors to wander around for a while.
• Putting together an instructional manual or a text packet? Most booklets of this type will have some sort of “chapter review.” Instead of bland questions at the end of each chapter, be creative—add a crossword or two, a few creative thinking questions, and make it more interesting.
• Run a departmental newsletter? Put together a crossword and put it in your next issue. Whether it’s work-related, seasonal, or completely irrelevant, it will brighten up the newsletter, and encourage employees to actually read it. Work at a doctor’s or dentist’s office? Put together a small puzzle and leave some copies in the waiting room. Keep your patients entertained.

Not all crossword puzzles have a theme, but they can help keep you focused while you’re thinking of words to add. Here are a few topics you can start with if you can’t think of any:

• Seasonal puzzles. That’s an easy one.
• Obscure history or science facts. This type of puzzle is best done in teams, because it can be difficult to do by yourself. Get a few history books, watch something on the History channel, search the Internet, or visit the library. Collect all of the weird facts you can find, and put them together in a puzzle. They don’t need to be related to one another.
• Family tree puzzles. Have a family reunion or holiday celebration coming up? Why not put together a crossword puzzle based on your family’s history or lineage. Might be a fun icebreaker!
• TV shows, movies, and music. These types of puzzles are always popular, and most people will know the answers or know someone else who will. The words don’t have to all relate to the same show or artist, of course.
• General-purpose crosswords. You don’t need to have a theme if you don’t want to. Most newspaper crosswords and puzzles in books and magazines don’t have a theme at all. Be creative, and pull together the words that you never thought you’d ever be able to use in a crossword puzzle.

Of course, you’ll need EclipseCrossword to build your crossword. It’s free! You can download it right here.